We are celebrating, today he is 60 years old Paul Annacone. And who is that?, some will ask. If you are a mid-level fan, you will know that he was a coach of Pete Sampras, Tim Henman, Roger Federer or Sloane Stephens, among others. Currently, she is part of the work team of Taylor Fritz. If you are at a higher level, you will also know that as a player he was #12 in singles and #3 in doubles, his biggest achievement being the Australian Open which he won in 1985 with Christo van Rensburg. But beyond his resume, his track record and his date of birth, what else do you know about the American? What is the story of him? What is the reason for his success on the benches with so many champions? We’ll talk about all of that today, so let me take this trip.
Being honest with Annacone –and perhaps a little cruel–, if it hadn’t been for his role as a technician, very few people would remember him. As a player he was not a virtuoso, despite reaching the top 15 singles and the top 5 in doubles. His professional career lasted from 1984 to 1993, a time that has nothing to do with the current one. His serve and volley style was non-negotiable, a kamikaze capable of giving you a scare if you get lost, a kind of eighties Maxime Cressy. Always faithful to this system, the man from Southampton suffered horrors from the bottom of the track, even later as a coach he had to find people to train with his pupils from this area. When the grass tour arrived and it was time to polish the game on the net, he served himself there.
Retired at a common age for the time (30), Annacone would soon cultivate a passion for seeing the aces from the sidelines, in part because he was presented with an opportunity he couldn’t refuse. After fighting almost two years against incurable brain cancer, Tim Gullickson It was one of the most tragic losses that are remembered in the world of tennis. Beyond his role as coach, Tim was a close friend of his player, Pete Sampras, which is why a year before he died he proposed adding a new voice to the team, someone who would travel the weeks in which he had treatment, which were most. The person chosen would be Paul, who had barely been retired for a couple of seasons.
EMERGENCY SUBSTITUTE
You can imagine the thorny situation in which Annacone was framed, traveling with a tennis player that was not his own, with the refusal to play any piece of the Gullikson-Sampras duo, although the hardest thing was to think that the fateful news could arrive at any moment from a distance. That day would come in May 1996, when Pete’s replacement on the bench went from being unofficial to official.. Together they would travel practically all the way to the finish line, until the day the 14 Grand Slam champion decided to hang up the racket, although it is true that the press never valued Paul’s work too much. Perhaps because of how everything happened, or because of his calm and reserved character, many saw him as a simple ‘interim’, someone who was in charge of accompanying the star and keeping him in shape. Obviously, they were wrong.
From the moment he took the reins of Sampras’s career, our protagonist wanted to have a say on all fronts. As a player he already showed that personality, marked by that style as uncomfortable as it was admirable, a system with which he drove his rivals crazy. Annacone was a player who took risks from the first ball, he was never seen to cross his arms and accept a defeat by a double 6-2, he always went for everything. Of course, he was also aware of his limitations, especially on clay, but it was all of that experience and analytical ability that saw Pete grow from boy to man during their seven seasons together.
At that moment of mourning, Sampras wanted a companion by his side, a counselor, someone who would help him enhance his abilities and discover his rival’s weaknesses. With Annacone he would hit the target, someone who stood out for his strategic virtue, although personally he had nothing to do with his predecessor. Paul was not one to socialize too much, he had a soft voice, he was reserved by nature, with a broad philosophical speech and oriented to be intimate only with his own. what was said, nothing to do with Gullikson, but everything to do with Pete. That connection of characters was an advantage from the beginning, developing shared roots between the two that would become even more solid over time. The bad? That the one in New York never received the credit it deserved from the outside. Because? Because in 1996, Pete Sampras was already number one in the world and had seven Grand Slam titles.
STILL MORE CHAMPION
‘Pistol’ never stopped winning and that put the responsibility entirely on him. So what role did Annacone have? For many, he was simply the one who brought the rackets and reserved the training courts. But Paul never sinned as self-centered, he never puffed up his chest for anything, you won’t find any headline poisoned by him. In that sense, he was a teacher, someone who always remained humble and away from the spotlight, which is why everyone respected him in the locker room. He may not have been the funniest guy in the room, but what he did have was a chameleon-like instinct when it came to getting along with the players.
“Paul knew that each person needs to be treated differently.”, explains Sampras in his autobiography, ‘A Champion’s mind’. “He could have trained me as he could have trained Agassi, he was a great reader of character and temperament, he also knew how to listen and how to say things. This is a great skill when it comes to being an elite coach, you have to understand your guy and work hard from his comfort zone, avoiding the temptation to change him or adjust him to your ways. Even knowing that this change can be beneficial”, adds the former No. 1 in the world.
Here Pete opens the most bitter melon of all, the act of starting to train someone full time after the death of the previous technician, who was also his friend. At first it was complicated, with an Annacone delivered to a version of continuity and faithful to Gullikson’s ideas. The thing worked, so he didn’t want to touch anything, this would be the biggest tribute to Tim, although he knew that permanent success only comes to those who never stand still. The passage of time made him see how important it was to keep improving, even for the best on the circuit, so he began to play a few keys. He focused mainly on Sampras’ attack tennis, his greatest asset, even leading to some doubts in Pete’s mind, who saw himself as a complete tennis player. Where he was truly a genius was analyzing the tactics of his rivals, having to hear this phrase from Sampras’s mouth more than once: “Why hadn’t I thought of this before?”
For example, for his confrontations with Andre Agassithis was the guideline: “Paul suggested that I should play him on the right, always look for him on the right and then open up a track for him in the backhand area. In fact, that was always my key to beating him, always starting the play from his right. On serve, however, he wanted me to start by hitting him backhand with an open serve, that would make Andre want to quickly protect the other side of the court. The idea was to prevent Andre from using his favorite strategy: returning a direct hit that would allow him to position himself in the center of the court, with the intention of dictating with his right hand.”.
More than one will have gotten wet eyes, others will be looking for summaries of the 90s, but Annacone’s guidelines were above any rival. Because Sampras, if he played well, he was left alone. “Show them that you are Pete Sampras and that you can attack at will”, the champion of three individual titles and fourteen in doubles always repeated. Sometimes this order was not fulfilled, it even led him to lose games where later the message in the locker room was softened: ‘I have seen you very well‘. But Pete didn’t want a pat on the back, he was willing to do anything to avoid defeat. On the other hand, what Paul was looking for was that his pupil was not predictable at any time, not even on the days when he wore his purest style.
That style appeared above all on grass, the surface where they had the least trouble understanding each other. What was the key to winning on grass? the second serve, regardless of the person who appeared on the other side of the network. “If you subtract their second serves right, you’ll beat them, no matter how many aces they hit, because you’ll wear them down. If Goran hits three aces in a row, so be it, forget it, don’t get discouraged and keep looking for his second serve, the opportunity will come”, insisted the one from New York.
SAMPRAS, A GENUINE CHARACTER
Sampras recounts in his autobiography that one of the concepts that most mutated in his mind was not to relax in games that went 40-0. With Gullikson this represented an opportunity to improvise or take some risk, but with Paul it was the opposite. He coach he got into his head how important it was to score a scoreless game. “The better you serve, the more pressure you put on your opponent. When Goran, Krajicek or Stich lose a scoreless game, what they think internally is: ‘how tough is this guy‘. He was more right than a saint and that is why he gradually updated the champion’s mind, although he was never able to multiply his ego.
Does anyone remember any of Pete’s gestures that generated controversy? Any attitude or speech that would argue with his rivals? That feeling was always inside, no matter how much Annacone insisted. “You have to be a little more arrogant, so that the world understands that you are Pete Sampras and the rest are not. These guys are afraid of you and you have to explore that“, he came to tell him at that time. What Paul was asking him was to keep his head high at each crossing with his rivals, without showing weaknesses, basically he was asking him not to be so kind and modest in front of the public. And what about why didn’t he listen to him The answer is very simple: he never needed it.
“I could have handled this issue in any way, but it wasn’t like me to be more assertive, I felt bad cultivating an image that wasn’t mine. I never wanted to misrepresent myself, to be perceived as conceited. The fact of being discreet was an advantage, this made my rivals nervous, I saw them wondering what was going on in my head. For example, the way Boris Becker walked the track made everyone want to beat him. I didn’t want to intimidate them like that, what I wanted was to make them nervous. Besides, if he didn’t act like he was the best in the world, it was easier for him not to feel like he was. In my time with Paul, the most dangerous thing was that all those press clippings did not go to my head, so I never took anything for granted.”.
This is the story of the brotherhood between Pete Sampras and Paul Annacone, the man who accompanied the champion during the last seven seasons of his career, helping him maintain his status in the elite until the final day. “He knew my mind, although the mind of a champion is not always easy to decipher. To me, he never got the credit he deserved, but I know all too well what he did for me. I won 10 of my 14 Grand Slams with him, Paul was the one who guided me with a steady hand through some of the most unpleasant and challenging moments of my career.For that I will be grateful all my life.”, writes the one from Washington in its pages. What less than today, on his 60th birthday, remembering one of those coaches who left their mark on the history of our sport.
